It is often said that our personal beliefs are what limits our potential. As I thought about this, it appeared to make a belief sound very solid, and by contrast potential sounded a bit ephemeral and abstract.  But is this really true?

What are beliefs? What is Potential?  How do they relate to one another ...

We certainly talk about beliefs as solid things.  We need to get over, overcome or leave them behind us. We sense they limit us, and we speak and act as if they were both within us and "out there."

It is funny how the more we see beliefs as limiting, in the way, or something to deal with, the more important they appear. And the more real.  But are they? (See the radio show on Thought Ruts). 

In my experience, beliefs are not solid things. They are just thoughts. A thought never hurt anyone all by itself. A thought never hurt you either. Even the feeling of a thought never can hurt you.   Even if you have been believing or thinking something for a long time and no matter how many other people agree ("The earth is flat!") look and see, is it really anything more than a passing idea?

We are quick to consider our thoughts and beliefs as "truth." But it does not make them so.

Potential is something you have inside you.  Think of it as untapped ability.

A horse may not ever in the whole of it's life jump a fence, but it certainly has the potential, or the ability to jump.

Potential is not what you think you can do, it is what you use to do what you decide to do.

I can't pack a parachute properly. My potential to do so lies in the innate intelligence I have to learn anything.

Potential is a very interesting things to consider, because it is not a belief. It lies behind what you think and believe, as permanent possibility.  Only its expression can be limited by what we think is possible.

In fact, anyone believing certain things to be true about themselves will conceive of their potential and their possibilities in a particular way. If their thoughts are limiting, that sense of limitation and the feeling of constraint is a real experience in the moment, but not a permanent truth.  And, more importantly, it doesn't change what potential is.

You cannot tarnish potential just because you see yourself as limited. But you can experience yourself as limited.

Your potential is a power.  It is an unseen force that is expressed very differently in each of us in beautiful, unique ways.

What happens to your ideas about your own potential when you think of potential as a power?

What happens to your ideas about change when you think of beliefs as solid?

On this note, it's interesting to remember that even matter is not solid.  Modern quantum physics says an atom does not have a nucleus made of "particles" in the way it was once thought. 

Energy in the nucleus, electrons, can express in forms of waves or particles. It depends. (See Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). So even matter, although it's hard to grasp this, is not that solid.  And since electrons can express in different forms, that means the core of an atom is actually potential.  

Just like the core of you.

A great way to stay stuck exactly where you are is to keep thinking the same thing
over and over and over.

Processing events via repetitive loops in your head increases tension and stuckness.

How do you get relief?

If you've ever made a mistake in life I'm sure you realized that there comes a point where you just have to face up to it.  No matter how bad it gets, you'll never be able to wake up one day and ask yourself for a divorce. No matter what you do or fail to do, you'll still always be looking at yourself in the mirror.

For some of us, that's a bit of a problem.  I'm sure it's been the reason behind many personal change programs and innumerable self-help books.   

But if you are going to live with you for the rest of your life, for better or for worse, isn't it time to make peace and get on with it?  I'd certainly prefer to. Especially since the alternative is to be stuck on an endless track of regret or anger with no exit ramp. 

So how do we live with our mistakes without letting them consume us with regret and rumination?

How do we let go of our thought ruts?

I've seen and practiced many methods for releasing the past, most all of them very helpful. Then recently something more profound occurred to me as I thought, "What am I actually trying to let go of?"

If you have ever wanted very much to forgive someone for something they did to you, or if you've done something you desperately regret, this is a very important question.

What gets "let go of?"  

What gets "forgiven?"

If you are willing to take a closer look, you may make an amazing discovery.  The only thing that remains once an event is over, is the thinking about it.  There is no more event. There are memories of course. But these are, as Sydney Banks said so well, "thoughts carried through time." And they are nothing more than that. 

This is not to say that events have not happened.  This planet most certainly has a history of wars, arguments, strife and ill-deeds. But in the aftermath of the deed, only one thing remains: the human being with their life stretched out ahead of them. What then?  To continue to be hurt by an event, you must pack it up in your mental suitcase and take it with you. If you didn't the past would be completely gone. Nowhere to be found.

Now that is going to sound extremely difficult if you are trying to move on from something that was big or traumatic. But if you'd like to at least consider the possibility that these bigger events are no different from smaller ones and that the way we move on from our Goliath battles is exactly the same way we let go of our mosquito bites, you may see something new. 

For example, I know that I absolutely cannot recall all the exams I did badly on in school. I know I didn't get straight A's. But I don't have a vivid recollection of each exam and each result. I know I had a great deal of stress and effort and in some cases trauma around exams. I remember vaguely I used to have nightmares during my university days. But after those exams where done I left them in the past. They didn't matter. I didn't take them forward as things to be sorry, sad or angry about. Interestingly, I don't remember trying to let go of them either. In fact, I don't recall doing anything in particular except just getting on with my life.  

I don't think there is anything intrinsic in any event that would force you to take it forward with you in time.  In fact, we are letting go all the time. Because we just don't think about it or if we do, we don't really take the thoughts that seriously. We shrug, "oh well," and order lunch.  We see that we are only having a passing thought. 

Here's another example to consider. When we first are getting to know a romantic partner, they look great to us. Once a few things have happened between us, they seem changed; they've become the clump of grievances we hold against them. How is it that someone we love becomes someone we despise? Let's face it, if you have ever been in a serious relationship, did you or did you not spend time rehearsing what you would say, how you would respond to something, or what someone did or said to you?  Maybe you were driving, or sitting at your desk, or talking to a friend.   

In these moments you were bringing the past into the future through your thinking. They become what you think about.  

Anyone in a successful relationship, whether a romantic partner or a parent, knows that you must let go of the rehearsing the past in your head before you can see the person for who they truly are. We also call this forgiveness.

The past has no power to assert itself into the present. Not all on its own.  It needs your help. It needs your power of thought to do that.

On the radio March 2nd, I cover one of the chief mechanisms by which we keep ourselves from letting go of what's happened and moving forward in life: obsessive thinking.  Mental rumination keeps the past alive in the present and, as I talk about in my book, 101 New Pairs of Glasses "robs you of your now."   

Joining me is Gabriela Maldonado who I work with at the Center for Sustainable Change.

I said to the almond tree, Friend, speak to me of God,
 and the almond tree blossomed. - Nikos Kazantzakis 

How like trees we are. Except for one thing... they are not upset.

But let me backup for a moment. 

One morning I was watching a palm tree. 

This one, actually.

It's rather beautiful how they sway with abandon (I swear they are going to snap in half!) and how tall some grow on huge spindly legs -- some three times higher than the homes below them.   

I was watching a palm standing perfectly silently. Everything was still in the air. So I thought.  Then a few of the feathered fronds began twitching wildly. There must have been one small stream of air gusting through that part of the branch. 

The palms are so high that they catch all kinds of air currents that I never feel or see.  These invisible winds can strip the palms of all their fronds and send them hurling to the ground, crashing through the windshields of the cars below.  Or just tickle them gently. Palms are truly at the mercy of the shifting winds.  Nothing can change the effect the wind on them: they sway and flutter all day and all night.  It is easy to see that this whole picture works very harmoniously, even on the stormiest of days. In fact, it seems built to work this way.  

Tossed by the Wind

As I watched the palm fronds doing their accordion dance, it occurred to me this is the way human thinking works too.  We experience our thoughts much the same way the palms experience the winds.   Thoughts move through us long before we detect they are there and we too, sway and flutter.  (In terms of our feelings that is).   

One thing I know to be true about humans is that thoughts are the source of our feelings.  Stormy thoughts stir up inevitably dark and tempestuous feelings and activate our senses. We can't stop that process any more than the palm can not sway in the wind.  

When the human has passing thoughts moving through they ondulate in harmony with that thinking, just like the tree bends with the passing wind; the difference is the tree is not upset about the fact that this is happening.  

The Tree is Neutral
When our thoughts are blowing around and our feelings are getting tossed up and down, however, we get anxious and afraid.  We don't feel neutral about this. We get concerned about our own movement.  I work with many people who are concerned about the way they are feeling.  They ask me, "Why do I feel so bad?"  Consider the possibility for a moment that there are not infinite answers to this question. There is, as far as I know, only one answer to this question: thought is blowing through.   

Sydney Banks who first described the 3 Principles wrote in The Missing Link, "Thought on it's own is a completely neutral gift."  

The simple explanation for all of it is, you are experiencing what you think.   

If only, like the tree, we could be neutral about this process!  After all, it's just the way we are made. Trees don't prefer calm days to windy days.  Trees are not concerned about storms. 

People are not like this are they?  We humans would like it all to stop moving. We want it smoothed out.  We don't want to sway in the wind. We don't like it.  All these troublesome feelings getting stirred around ... we want to control the wind. We want to locate the person who sent the wind and make them stop. We hire people hoping they will tell us how to stop the wind.   

We are not always happy when we realize we can't stop the wind blowing.   

It's No Big Deal
One of the laws of life is that, as humans, we think.  Another is that we feel what we think.   What if we could really see that this is just no big deal? 

It is so very important to know that the human is not defective as he/she experiences the ups and downs of emotional life. 

I was telling a friend that the great benefit of learning the Three Principles is not that my life has smoothed out to a lovely even hum, but that I've stopped worrying about tracking where I am in every moment and trying to control what I think. I accept that I am in movement.  

I used to be incredibly concerned about my moods.  I thought they meant something about me.   Now I see how they come and go and I am much less attentive to them. I'm not trying to create a prevalent "good mood" I am simply getting clearer about how the process works. And that clarity has left me much kinder and more understanding towards myself.  Being less concerned about shifting feelings also tends to leave me in a clearer state of mind generally, so I notice I occasionally have made better decisions about what truly needs to be said out loud, or whether I should be driving.   

When I am not trying to change my own mood or judging it, I get more open to seeing it for what it is. 

We are actually as perfectly built as the tree.  You already are the tree that bends.  If you were not unhappy about that, you'd be as contented as the palm tree, or let's say -- you'd be as "non-concerned" as a palm tree -- and you'd stop trying so hard to control the content and flow of your thinking. 

In that moment you'd find your complete freedom, because you would literally no longer be like Don Quixote "tilting at windmills."

Have you noticed lately that lots of things we never thought could possibly happen, have happened?  Did you know bionic research is in the process of creating the 'Million Dollar Man'?  (OK, actually she's a woman and she has a bionic arm she can attach where her physical arm used to be.    See last months' National Geographic if you think I make this stuff up). More to the point, guess how you control a bionic arm? You use your mind.  Not the conscious mind, the one that takes effort - the other one, the one that just simply 'moves the arm'.

The mind truly amazing and too wonderful a thing to waste. I believe it is not confined to a brain, but just as we supposedly activate only a small portion of the brain,  we waste the true power of our mind every day.

What does this have to do with the limits of the impossible?  Basically, our minds have a lot of say over what we believe is possible.  Ever tried to outwit your own mind when it says - I can't?  Now when I suggest we waste the capacity of the mind, I'm not talking about creative day-dreaming.  I'm talking about going unconscious.  For example, you might go to exercise after a hard day, let's say, taking a long run in nature but as the body oxygenates, you use your mind to replay the stress of something that happened earlier, over and over again.  I'm talking about going for a massage and lying there thinking about all your faults and all the ways you hate your body.  That kind of thing.

How many times have you had a wonderful idea and then stomped it out with all the reasons why it is not possible? If dreams were socks, somewhere there are drawers and drawers full of all the lost socks waiting to be found again and paired up with their owners.

Although we may be more accustomed to choking off our dreams, by labeling them 'Impossible' the good news is that we can use the same imagination either to argue for our limitations, or to find creative ways to dance our way to our target.  What I'm saying is essentially, it's possible to change the film running in your head from today's matinee of fear and limitation to tomorrow's long running smash hit called your life.  And while I don't think that's accomplished by "positive thinking" alone, I do think our creative resources are easier to access from a mindset of openness rather than shut-down-ness.

Argue for your limitations and quite simply, you'll have them.  Unless you have a great friend (or a great coach) who will risk being honest enough to challenge you, I don't think many people will bother to take the opposite view.  In fact, most people are happy for you to keep your limitations and live happily ever after with your long list of These Are The Things That Are Quite Impossible For Me, Thank You Very Much.  Because they are doing exactly the same.

If this sounds horrid, it's because it is.

Challenging your 'Impossibles' is one of the most liberating experiences you can ever have.  I saw it in Michael Neill's "30 Days to Creating the Impossible" and I've talked about it plenty on the show.  Most recently with 'Who Says The Impossible is Impossible" (aired January 20, 2010)

To challenge your 'impossibles' I highly recommend keeping an eye out for Michael's next program.  Until then, here are some things you can do/read:

Gay Hendricks' book, The Big Leap
Get past your Upper Limit Syndrome, by expanding your tolerance for things going well in your life

Barbara Sher's books Wishcraft and I Could Do Anything, If Only I Knew What It Was  (I highly recommend her Twitter IdeaParties on Thursdays for getting past dream blockages!)

And you can:

• Create a powerful mantra that is true and makes you feel good (use it to replace the "I can't" dialogues you've got running).  "I am open to more good that I have ever experienced before" is a great one!
• Create a self-care routine that puts you in touch everyday with the well of good feeling in you
• Get a buddy or coach or guidance from a spiritual teacher to challenge your limiting beliefs and fears and let them go
• make room in your life for new ideas by mindfulness and openness practices - especially forgiveness - which is the best mental de-clutter I know of

If you know you have a dream and you want to start getting it out of the sock drawer, talk to me about my ProjectDream Mastermind group where you can learn to get creative, take action, enjoy the process and build something you've always wanted.  This is a small group of very focused people, so you'll need to talk to me to see if there's room and if it's right for you.  You can write me at  [email protected] 

I just love this video!  If you are not familiar with Byron Katie and how to do the work, drop me a line ([email protected]) or see Katie's site www.thework.com for all the information you need plus more videos.

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